Justin Bieber, Anne Frank Would Probably Be a Belieber - Stepsister of Holocaust Victim Says
Justin Bieber stirred controversy when he said he hoped Anne Frank would have been a Belieber, but the Holocaust victim's stepsister has since come out giving the pop singer the biggest support of all for his comments.
The 19-year-old Beauty and a Beat singer visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and wrote in the guest book "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."
"Belieber" is the term his followers call themselves.
Bieber was slammed by many who thoughts the comments were "self-serving" and tasteless," according to Reuters. However, Frank's childhood friend and stepsister defended the singer by saying there is a good chance the inspirational writer would have indeed been a Bieber fan.
Eva Schloss was a friend of Frank's before their families were forced into hiding. She said, "[Frank] would probably have been a fan."
"Why not?" she asked, saying about Bieber, "He's a young man and she was a young girl, and she liked film stars and music."
The Anne Frank Museum took no offense to Bieber's "quite innocent" comments and released the following statement on Monday: "He was here for more than hour and interested in Anne Frank's life and that for us is the most important thing."
CNN talk show host Piers Morgan also said Bieber made no mistake with his Frank comments. He tweeted on April 15, "I'm backing @justinbieber - again. He meant no offence, and has got the world's youth talking about Anne Frank. This is a good thing."
"Give him a break!" he added.
Bieber stopped in Amsterdam as part of his Believe world tour.
Frank died at age 15 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. She is one of the most well-known Jewish victims of the Holocaust due to her diary, which was published in 1947 under the name The Diary of a Young Girl. It was originally written in Dutch.
